The Dark at the End 7

Hank Thompson popped into Drexler's office to see if he'd calmed down from yesterday. And to see if maybe he'd explain his "you might be the most surprised of all" remark. It had bothered him yesterday, but after last night's dream ...

The Kicker Man in trouble again, worse this time. Just like the past few nights, he'd been under attack by a flock of birds or things that looked like birds - like in that movie where the birds turned on people. Just like before, they swarmed him, but this time they knocked him down and wouldn't let him get up. And at the end he'd just lain there as they pecked at him.

Gave Hank the creeps.

Annoying Drexler would take the edge off.

But instead of Drexler he found his enforcer, Szeto, in the office. Not just in the office, but seated behind Drexler's desk. The Kickers had their fair share - some said more than their fair share - of scary guys, but Hank had always found Szeto even scarier. Everything about the guy was black, from his eyes to his hair - Hank had always wanted to ask if he dyed it - to his clothes. He looked better than he had a couple of weeks ago when someone worked him over real good. Anyone who could put that kind of hurt on Szeto had to be one tough mother.

"Where's the boss?"

"Mister Drexler not in today," he said in English warped by an Eastern European accent. Russian? Romanian? Hungarian? They all sounded the same to Hank.

Then he raised his black-booted feet and plopped them on the desk.

"Don't know if the boss would like that."

"Do I look worried?"

Hank noted the smug tone. What was going down here? A little palace revolt in the works?

Szeto smiled. "Is something I can help you with?"

Hank was about to say no, then remembered a little research Szeto had been assigned last month.

"Remember those guys you were supposed to look into? The one who'd been a kid when Drexler met him - the friend of the brother and sister you were hunting - and John Tyleski, the one who stole something from me?"

Stole the Compendium of Srem ... Hank couldn't believe he'd allowed that to happen. He still lay awake some nights dreaming of strangling that son of a bitch.

Szeto shook his head. "Both are dead ends. The boy disappears during college. No record, not of taxes or even Social Security number. Your man, Tyleski, he lives only on paper. Has credit card and Social Security but address is mailbox."

Hank wandered around the office. The news was hardly a surprise. About a year ago - in fact, next month would make it exactly a year - this asshole Tyleski had presented himself as a reporter from the Trenton Times who wanted to interview him about his book and the growing Kicker movement. Back then, Hank would ramble on to anyone who'd listen. The guy had asked all the wrong questions - hell, they almost got into a fight. Hank ran a check and found out the Trenton Times had never heard of John Tyleski. And then he went and robbed Hank of what was unquestionably the most valuable book on Earth - mugged him and snatched it in broad daylight.

Hank couldn't report the theft, of course, because the book had been stolen from the Museum of Natural History by one of his Kickers.

But wait ...

Certain tidbits began to circulate in his head, bouncing off each other, looking for ways to fit together.

"Check this out: We've got a real person - personally known to our good buddy Drexler - who grows up and disappears. Later on there's a person who uses the name of a man who exists only on paper." He turned to Szeto. "Could the first guy have become the second?"

Szeto looked mildly interested. "Possible. But not probable."

"Tyleski knew more about me and other things than anybody should know." That had become apparent to Hank during the interview. "And then last summer up pops this guy who Tasers your boss and me while we're trailing the Fhinntmanchca. Only Drexler got a look at him."

Szeto smirked. "No. You must have seen him as well. I understand he was posing as Kicker and was in and out of here many times."

Hank had been down with a zillion Taser volts in him and not noticing a whole lot of what was going on in his immediate vicinity. The guy had been wearing a beard so it was hard to sync up memories of Tyleski with Drexler's description of the Taser guy. No point in getting sidetracked into the possibility that Tyleski could have grown a beard and been right under Hank's nose for who the hell knew how long.

"According to Drexler, the Taser guy had brown hair and brown eyes, just like Tyleski, and he also knew all sorts of stuff no one outside the Order should know. So, couldn't he and Tyleski be the same person?"

Szeto looked a little more interested. "Possible."

"But still not probable?"

"I do not know."

"Can we agree on still improbable, but less so?"

Szeto shrugged. "If you wish."

"Good. Then, as I recall, last summer you were looking for a woman who knew lots more than she should."

Szeto's eyes flashed. "Louise Myers, yes. We know where is bitch but the One does not wish her touched."

"But what if we - ?"

"The One has spoken."

Hank sighed. The One, the One, the One.

"Okay. Be that as it may, I recall that she had a protector who killed just about every man you sent against her. A man you never saw and could never find. And the Myers gal comes from that same town as the man Drexler knew as a boy, the one who vanished without a trace."

Szeto dropped his feet from the desk and leaned forward. "You really think...?"

"All I'm saying is we've got three guys messing with us - 'Tyleski,' the Taser guy, and the killer - and no one knows who they are or where they are. They're untraceable."

"But you mention boy."

"Yeah. The boy - a fourth guy we can't find. A circle is a perfect shape, and I see things circling back to a certain boy in that small town in Jersey. Could all four mystery men turn out to be just one guy?"

Szeto pounded his fist on the desk. "But we do not know where he is!"

"The boy's got to have family - "

"All dead or disappeared."

"Then we're left with Louise Myers, who you're afraid to touch."

Szeto smiled like a snake. "You are free to approach her. Do not let me stop you."

Going against the One ... uh-uh.

"Well then, looks like we're stuck, amigo."

"No. Not stuck. He has been to high school and to university. We can get picture - "

"Right-right-right. Yearbooks." Hank hadn't thought of that.

"And you can see if face is same as Tyleski."

"Well, that'll answer some questions about who he is, but we won't be any closer to knowing where. Let's just hope that if the One changes his mind about the Myers babe, he lets your people know. Because she can point us to him, and I sorely want to get my hands on that fucker."

Szeto rose to his feet and puffed up behind the desk. "The One speaks to me. He will tell me first."

Hank stared at Szeto as the implications of that remark sank in.

First?

"I thought he spoke to your boss - "

"No. Speaks to me. He comes to me for solution to problems. If he does not wish Myers woman disturbed, okay. I am in her hometown many times. I can find other way perhaps."

"In Jersey? What for?"

"Is not your concern. The One gives me many things to do and I am taking care of them all."

Many things to do?

"Like what?"

That smirk again. "If the One wishes you to know, I am sure he will tell you."

Had Drexler been taken out of the loop? Hank didn't like that. Not one bit. Because if Drexler had been booted aside, Hank might be next.

... You might be the most surprised of all ...

Hell, he might have been given the boot already and didn't even know it.